The Abyssinian Proof

25

The back of Elif’s head barely moved as she became an instrument of her art, capturing the shapes and colors of Kamil’s orchids amid grand gray shadows and the trickle of moisture over the back of the windowpanes. She wouldn’t allow him to watch while she painted, but once, when she briefly left the room, Kamil had taken a quick look. He was stunned by the powerful thoughts and feelings these simple lines and fields of color evoked in him. Sadness, hope amid ruin. Before she returned, he sat back down in his wicker chair on the other side of the winter garden, facing away. He pretended he was reading and watched the reflection of her head in the rain-darkened glass.

After an hour and a half, Yakup signaled to Kamil that a small meal was ready. Elif put her brush down and busied herself with cleaning the trays of watercolor. When she looked up at him, it was as if from a great distance, but by the time they had sat at the table and sampled Karanfil’s lamb-stuffed pastries, Elif was chatting gaily. She looked, Kamil thought with pleasure, as if she had finally come home.

Afterward, they sat on a sofa in a room overlooking the back garden. The rain had turned to mist, fogging the windows. Yakup had lit the wood in the fireplace. Kamil brought several of his watercolor sketches of rare orchids to show Elif. Occasionally he sent a sketch and description of particularly interesting orchidaceae to H. G. Reichenbach, the world’s leading authority on orchids, who directed the botanic gardens at Hamburg University. Kamil had never received a response, but hoped through his persistence to interest Reichenbach in the many varieties found only in Ottoman lands.

He held out a sketch of an orchid with yellow-green sepals. “This is an Ophrys lutea. I drew it in a cemetery in Bursa.”

“It’s lovely. You have such a delicate touch that I can almost feel the weightlessness of the bloom. They’re remarkable flowers.”

Embarrassed by her praise, which he was convinced he didn’t deserve, Kamil put his drawings away.

Elif rotated the glass of tea in her hands, warming them. Kamil could sense her appraising him.

“Would you like something more, Elif Hanoum?” He was beginning to worry about the time.

“Please call me Elif. I stopped calling you pasha.”

Kamil was amused. “I’ve never much liked the title myself. It sounds pompous.”

“I’ve always disdained rank and titles and authority. I’ve never understood why they’re necessary.” Suddenly her voice became serious. “But I learned about that during the troubles at home.” She twisted around and faced him, tucking her feet under her on the sofa. “What I learned was that no matter what country you live in in your head, you can’t afford to ignore the one on your doorstep. If you do, it will punish you. People who have power are proud and they want tribute. You can pay it in respect or you can pay it in blood. That’s your choice.” She stared into the fire. “It’s the people who don’t have power and who suddenly get it that you have to watch out for. They never give you a choice.”

Kamil saw tears sliding down her cheeks and wondered again what she had lived through in Macedonia. He handed her a handkerchief. Elif wiped the tears from her face. He put his arm around her as if it were the most natural thing to do, and they sat silently, engrossed by their thoughts. Her shoulders under the jacket felt thin and fragile.

After a while, Elif said, “That was the first time I was able to cry since…”

Kamil reached over and pulled his finger across her forehead as he did to Feride when she was sad. “Even to grieve, you need to feel safe. You’re safe now.”

“I didn’t tell Feride and Huseyin the whole truth about what happened,” she admitted.

“You don’t need to tell anyone anything.”

“I would like to tell you.”

“I would be honored.”

“My husband wasn’t killed by the Christians. He was killed by the Ottoman army as a deserter.”

Kamil wasn’t surprised. He had heard that the armies in the provinces were so desperate for men that they were conscripting even boys and old men. It was a fatal symptom of what Huseyin had pointed to the other night, the inevitable decline of Ottoman power. How much longer could a government hold on when it had to force its citizens to abandon their own families in order to fight their neighbors?

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of. The conscription is unjust.”

“He was an artist who didn’t know the butt end of a gun from the barrel.” She shook her head. “That’s not an excuse. I had to learn. Sometimes you have to do things that kill you inside. But whatever else I thought about him, he cared about his son.”

She shifted her feet and sat coiled into herself with her arms around her knees.

“He would have done it, but he didn’t want to leave us unprotected. Guerillas had put flags up all over the district like dogs leaving their mark. There was a little flag stuck into our front gate. I’m sure if I had plucked it out, they would have shot me. But it wasn’t just the flags. We heard rumors of terrible things that had happened to Muslim families in the next town. The guerillas shot the men and then…” She grasped her knees tightly. “Anyway, Dimitri told the Ottoman patrol that came to our door that he wouldn’t go, that he had to stay and protect his family. They asked him his name and he told them the truth, that his father was a Slav and his mother a Muslim. The soldier leading the patrol was very young. He didn’t even have a mustache. And here was this man telling him no and all the men in his patrol hearing it. So he had to put his foot down. He had to show them he was a man. So he said to Dimitri, ‘Well, you’re not one of us anyway,’ and just shot him point blank in the chest.” She looked up at Kamil with fathomless eyes. “And do you know what he did then?” she asked incredulously. “He pushed Dimitri aside and walked up to me and made this formal bow. I was wearing a charshaf and standing in front of the door. He bowed and said, ‘My apologies, hanoum. You’re safe now.’ Can you believe it? A polite murderer.”

“Allah protect us from people who mistake cruelty for duty and politeness for compassion. Unfortunately, our administration is full of people like that.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “I had a gun in my hand under my charshaf. If my son hadn’t been inside, I would have shot that man. My finger was on the trigger. I’ve never felt such a powerful desire to kill someone. It’s remarkable, as if you’re standing on top of a mountain and one more breath will bring on Armageddon. You can choose. Destroy or not destroy. It does something to you.”

She sat hunched up, leaning against Kamil’s chest.

“Later, when they killed my boy, I was beyond that. To kill someone else or to kill yourself, sometimes there’s really no difference.”

“What did you do after your husband died?”

“Oh, he didn’t die. Not then. He lost a lot of blood, but not enough to kill him. I went next door to our neighbor, who was a surgeon. He had delivered my son. Dimitri’s paintings hung in his house. In the summers, we drank wine together under our grape arbor. His wife was my best friend.”

She stopped speaking, unfolded herself from the sofa and walked over to the fire. She took off her jacket, then took a poker and stabbed angrily at the glowing coals. The faint shadow of her body showed through the cotton shirt and Kamil was shocked to realize how thin she was under all that material.

“Shall I send for fresh tea?” he asked. The day’s imperatives had receded. He was caught in the anguish of her reminiscences.

She shook her head and sat down beside him, keeping her eyes on the fire.

“He refused to come. They wouldn’t even open their door to me. They were Christians, you see. Even though they saw what had happened, that Dimitri had been shot by Muslims, they wouldn’t come out. I pulled Dimitri inside the house and took care of him as best I could, but the wound festered and he died, but much later. He was in great pain.” She held her hands over her ears. “I’m sure they must have heard him next door. I didn’t have the strength to bury him, so I covered him with his paintings, oils mostly, and set them on fire. I didn’t want the neighbors to get his paintings, to get anything. But I stole their carriage and two of their best horses.” She grinned, tears running down her face.

Kamil’s mind raced with images of Elif, hair cut short and dressed as a man, loaded revolver in hand, bundling her son into her neighbor’s carriage and driving away as her house went up in flames. He took her hands in his and said, “I can’t tell you how much I admire you, Elif.”

“I don’t deserve any praise. I lost everything. We got as far as Edirne before we were attacked by bandits. I don’t even know who they were.” She shrugged. “Bandits have no religion. I shot two of them, but there were too many. When I woke up, we were lying in the bushes by the side of the road.”

Kamil waited, but when she didn’t continue, he offered, “Bashiniz sagholsun. What was your son’s name?”

Her voice shuddered. “I can’t say it.”

“I understand.”

She let her head rest on his shoulder for a long while, their hands entwined.

“I’m grateful to you, Kamil. I feel you are truly my friend.”

“I’m honored by your trust.” Kamil felt his response was stilted, but in the emotionally charged atmosphere he didn’t know what else to say. “I’m your servant in all things.”

She sat up suddenly and said, “How selfish of me to take up your morning like this. Please forgive a woman who’s been living outside of time for so long, she’s forgotten that other people have duties. I can be such a bully when there’s something I want to do. I’m sure Huseyin would claim it’s a family trait.” She realized what she had said. “Oh, I didn’t mean that Huseyin is a bully.”

Their eyes met and they laughed. Her face was flushed, her eyes brilliant. Kamil thought she looked like an archangel, both beautiful and frightening. He reached for her hand and pressed it to his mouth.

He wished he had something to offer that would pull her back into the world. He had a sudden thought. “Did Feride tell you about the woman from Sunken Village?”

“Your half sister Saba? Yes. She was very excited. Other women might have been jealous or afraid, but not Feride.”

He told Elif he would be right back and left the room. In the hall, he took out his watch and was horrified to discover that it was eleven o’clock.

He returned a few moments later with Malik’s letter. He explained who had written it and what had happened. “We’re looking for two things, a reliquary and a lead sleeve that fits inside the reliquary and contains a valuable old document. Malik took the document out and hid it for safety. He wanted me to find the reliquary so he could reunite it with the document and give it back to the sect. But now that he’s gone, both are missing.”

“What is this document?”

“People refer to it as the Proof of God, but I’m not sure anyone really knows what it is. The important thing is that a lot of people seem to be after it.” He was about to warn Elif that this might be dangerous, then bit his tongue. “We looked through Malik’s house and didn’t find anything, so he must have hidden it somewhere else after the reliquary was stolen. I thought there might be some clues in his letter, but I couldn’t find them. Maybe you’ll see something I’ve missed.”

In addition to the story of Saba’s birth, Malik had reminded Saba of her duties as priestess.

“They have a priestess?” Elif asked. “Are they Christians?”

Kamil shook his head no. He didn’t want to go into the complications of that now; some things were not his to share.

At the end, Malik had included a prayer:

Hail Mary, Mother of the Word,

Hear those who bear your message,

Container of the Uncontainable,

Grant us your intercession.

Raise your eyes to the slain children,

O Samaritan,

In the dwelling place of the living and the dead.

and a notation: “Matthew 2:16.”

Kamil hoped that Elif, with her knowledge of art, might see something in the imagery of the prayer.

When Elif had finished reading, she said, “Malik could have given this directly to his niece. I think he meant it for you too. To help you find the Proof of God in case something happened to him.”

“But why make it so cryptic?”

“He didn’t know who’d see it, did he?”

“What do you make of the prayer?”

Elif asked him for a piece of paper and, referring back to the letter, made some notes. She handed it to him.

“Do these words mean anything to you?”

He read:

Mary

Mother of the Word

Message

Container of the Uncontainable

Slain children

Samaritan

Dwelling place

Matthew 2:16

“I think Matthew 2:16 might refer to something in the Bible. Do you have a copy?” she asked.

“I’m afraid I don’t. But what about ‘dwelling place’?” He pointed at the term. “The Kariye Mosque was once the Church of Chora, which Malik said meant Dwelling Place of the Uncontainable. So maybe we can assume it’s in the mosque. That’s a start.” He took the poker and stirred the embers in the fireplace. “That’s where he was killed. I never understood why he left his house in the middle of the night to go to the mosque. Someone must have called him there.”

“I’m sorry.”

He read through the list again. “Maybe the rest refer to the mosaics.” Kamil told her about the Byzantine images.

“Fascinating. Would it be a burden, I mean, would you consider…Might I accompany you sometime or would I be a hindrance in your work?”

Kamil was taken aback. In his mind, he had already moved on to business and assumed she would go home.

Kamil and Elif sat side by side in a closed carriage. Kamil was glad of her company, but also anxious, not only because she was dressed as a man, but also because he worried she would draw time away from his investigation. He had already lost too much of it to waste more on chivalry, explanations, and playing tour guide.

The Old City also was much more conservative than Beyoglu and the modern suburb of Nishantashou, where Feride lived. Kamil wasn’t entirely sure Elif meant her costume to be an impersonation, it just seemed to be the way she had decided to dress. Turkish women wore trousers, but they were very wide and draped with shape-concealing sweaters, vests, robes, and tunics. In the street, even these were covered by a cloak and veil.

Elif had taken off her hat and was looking out the window. He looked at the back of her small, neat head resting against the back of the seat. He wondered whether his feelings for her were appropriate. A woman who had faced the worst that humankind could offer didn’t need his protection.

He told the driver to let them out at the Nurosmaniye entrance to the bazaar. He had to stop himself from helping her out of the carriage. She hopped nimbly down onto the cobbled lane. As a precaution, Kamil asked his driver to accompany them a short distance behind.

They walked past the Nurosmaniye Mosque and fountain, then ducked through an enormous gate with iron-studded doors. Inside, a great vaulted street, lit by numerous lamps, burrowed down one side of the small city that was the bazaar. This was the gold market and the reflected light was dazzling.

As Kamil had feared, Elif dawdled at the shop windows, her hat drawn low across her forehead. When shopkeepers came out to ask politely if they could assist her, she walked quickly on without responding, only to be captured by the next display.

Kamil stopped and waited for her to catch up. “We’re going to the Inner Bedestan. That’s where they keep the antiques and the rare, precious items. It’s a building within a building that is locked up at night, with its own guards.” He could see the bazaar spinning in her eyes. It was too much, he knew. There were over five hundred shops under one roof. He hurried her up and down the connecting streets until they came to another large iron gate that stood open. Inside, the atmosphere was calmer, the shops smaller, the displays less prosaic. Porcelain vases, mirrors with carved silver backs, Roman coins, sturdy old books in leather covers, illuminated Greek manuscripts, Persian and Ottoman miniatures. Elif gravitated to these, fascinated by the brilliant colors and minute details. There were also some oil paintings.

“I don’t recognize these,” she whispered, “but they’re in the Impressionist style. They’re very good. See that one?” She pointed to one of a woman dressed in white, hand in hand with a child, standing on the side of a grassy hill silhouetted against the sun. They looked like clouds scudding across the landscape.

“I check the shops here regularly for stolen antiquities. This is where they end up if they’re sold locally. I’ll be back in a little while. Will you be alright?”

She nodded without looking away from the painting.

“The driver is nearby if you need anything and I’ll be just around the corner.” He motioned to his driver to keep an eye on her.

Kamil made his regular round of the shopkeepers. They knew the magistrate and why he was there, but they never knew when he would come by. After a while, even the most cautious of them brought their best items out and displayed them, hoping for buyers. Kamil had discovered several important objects here-a fifteenth-century Iznik tile taken from a mosque in Bursa, two icons from a Greek Orthodox church in Albanian Village, and several gold cruci-fixes. The shopkeepers always claimed they didn’t know the objects were stolen and bewailed their lost money when Kamil confiscated them. Only rarely could Kamil work his way through the thicket of middlemen to discover and sometimes even apprehend the actual thief. The bazaar was a closed world whose inhabitants protected each other against outsiders.

“Good day, Serkis,” Kamil greeted the shopkeeper of a tiny store.

“Good day, Magistrate. I hope you are well.” Serkis didn’t look pleased to see Kamil.

Kamil accepted a glass of tea. Serkis stood, ceding the padded bench to Kamil. They exchanged ritual greetings and pleasantries. Finally, Serkis said, “What can I help you with today, Magistrate?”

From where he sat, Kamil could see the contents of the entire shop. The walls were hung with framed illuminated manuscripts and shelves held trays of coins, old jewelry, and silver objects. “I’d be pleased to see whatever you have that’s new.”

“Are you looking for anything in particular?”

Kamil sipped his tea as the most valuable missing antiquities ran through his head, like the diamond-studded chalice and the solid-gold plate still missing from the Fatih Mosque. Instead, he said, “A silver reliquary.”

“Nothing like that has come to me.” Serkis’s face was a mask.

Kamil reflected that the merchant had had a lifetime of experience in hiding his emotions. He waited.

“Perhaps I can interest you in something else? As a small token of my appreciation.” The merchant pulled out a tray of silver jewelry and placed it on the table by Kamil’s elbow. Kamil’s eye was drawn to an intricate and unusual pin.

“What kind of design is this?” he asked the merchant.

“I believe it’s Celtic. Excellent choice, Magistrate. I’ll wrap it for you.”

Kamil felt sure it was Malik’s and a great sadness descended on him, as if it were his friend’s spirit trapped on this profane tray.

“Where did you get it?” He dreaded the answer.

Alerted by Kamil’s tone, Serkis’s hands stopped their practiced dance of laying out paper. “I don’t know where it came from. I bought it two days ago as part of a job lot from another dealer.”

“What else was in the lot?”

“Some manuscripts. Nicely illuminated. I’ve sold those already. There are collectors just waiting for things like that to come on the market.” He gestured with his hand. “I send a message and a few hours later, they’re sold.”

“What else?”

Serkis ducked behind the curtain at the back of the shop and returned a moment later with a ledger. He leafed through it until he found the right page. “Here it is. Three more pins, a silver-backed hairbrush and matching mirror, and a cigarette holder.”

“Let me see them.”

Serkis bent over and pulled open some drawers. Before long all the objects were arrayed on a piece of green baize. Kamil didn’t recognize any of them.

“Is the dealer here in the bazaar?”

“Gomidian on the Street of Mirrormakers.”

“Please invite him here.” It was a command.

Serkis sent an apprentice the few steps to Gomidian’s shop. Almost immediately, a large head, topped by a fez, pushed through Serkis’s door.

“What’s new, what’s not?” Gomidian asked wittily.

Kamil introduced himself and saw Gomidian’s smile disappear. “I’d like to know who sold you this pin.”

The three men were crammed into the store, Kamil sitting on the only seat.

“I don’t remember.” Gomidian’s hair was thick with pomade, and like all of the shopkeepers, he wore trousers and a jacket. He had a thick mustache and a gnarled nose that looked as though it had been broken several times.

Kamil had a sudden urge to break it once more. He crossed his legs and leaned back. “I have plenty of time.”

The men began to sweat. Serkis told the dealer in an agitated whisper, “What does it matter? This is just chicken crap.”

“I have to protect my sources,” Gomidian exclaimed.

Serkis raised his hands in acquiescence. “Of course.”

When Gomidian turned and headed for the door, Kamil rose and blocked his way.

Serkis fluttered about nervously, worried about damage to his shop.

Gomidian shrugged. “A crazy blood from Charshamba named Amir or Amid or something. A virgin. Didn’t have a clue how to negotiate a deal, but loud as a rooster.”

Kamil’s disquiet deepened. He asked for a description, just to be sure, then he dropped the pin into his pocket. He thanked the men, and left the shop. They looked visibly relieved.

Two streets over, he saw Elif, hands in her pockets, head poised over a display of enameled French clocks.

“Shall we go?” he asked distractedly. Seeing the surprise on her face, he felt guilty at rushing her and was relieved when she smiled and nodded.

They returned to the carriage.

Kamil was anxious to tell Omar about the pin and all that it implied, and he wanted to search the Kariye without Elif to distract him.

“Something’s come up,” he told Elif. “I’ll get out at the Fatih police station, but the carriage is yours for the day.” He leaned out and gave the driver instructions.

“Are you still going to the Kariye Mosque?”

“Later this afternoon.”

As the carriage jerked into motion, he reached down and took out a parcel the driver had stowed there.

He handed it to her. “A gift for your new life.”

“May I open it now?”

“As you like.”

She drew out the oil painting of the woman and child in the sun.

“May you be happy,” he said softly.

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.